Tuulispask..

Nii.. I meant to set myself onto writing this post much earlier. 'Earlier', meaning around 20 minutes ago, when I attempted to take the cork out of a bottle of glögi (hot mulled wine) Amerikkan style, and subsequently found myself with the same cork mashed into small traces now floating in the upper stratum of said glögi. Nothing like the spice of the holidays.. I'll work myself back around to how I am drinking this, writing this, sitting on a window ledge with Soome Järv (Gulf of Finland) melding with the sky to my right.. punctured by small shots of golden light which strike between the sea and sky.. and sudden complementing shards which slide past; ships coming into the harbor. Ilus. Aga esimene, reisist.. (Though first, about the trip..)

A large part of me wants to smite much of London Gatwick Airport with an ice pick. Nothing telling occurred on the flight to London aside of an empty seat next to me (score!), allowing me to uncomfortably curl to the side over both for a solid restful hour and a half or so (in place of uncomfortably sitting with my head to the side). Watched some Darjeeling Limited.. good film, though I would come to somewhat loathe the catchphrase of 'sometimes you realize that it is the journey that matters more than the destination' or something..

After a good fifteen minutes (I believe everything I hear, and that is how long the captain said that we would be circling.. timekeeping devices might report longer, though how reliable are those? Y2K slipped past our perception and is still fucking things up, hear you me..) hanging around LGW from the air, we landed and started our taxi to Glasgow and back. Given, I didn't fully mind as I had until 6pm until my flight to Tallinn was scheduled to take off.. the less I would spend in the outer-suburbs-1960's-mall-type interior of the airport, the better.. aaah, the fickle dreams of youth..

My ticket was actually ready sharpish from the desk, and I spent the next three hours staked out jamming to some Anima System and Adjagas.. couldn't really summon the energy to move beyond the A section of the iPod anyway. I found out around 2 that you couldn't begin check-in until 2 hours before your flight, so restaked myself with an expensive club sandwich until the time came.. then when I returned below, I found the entire passenger list of the plane lined up for two workers. Given their combined weight, I was figuring that they would have enough energy to speedily complete the task at hand. Aahh.. with boarding time fast approaching, I finally made my way to the front, and as I figured, was slapped with some large fees for being some kilos over the weight limit. This meant that I had to leave the line, join another line, find out that that was the wrong line, join yet another line, fight some Bulgarians to keep my place (I threatened them with revoking their EU membership.. said I had powerful friends.. felt like it was possible..) before finally ascending the summit to the front of that line. Although my receipt showed the simple price needed to be paid, this involved a 42 step process, some indentured servitude, shoe shining, reciting the script of Tommy Boy backwards, mimicry of Britishness, and other things not fit to write. Got the fee paid (..more than my plane ticket itself..), felt slightly powerful as I was able to punch straight past the rest of the line and pick up my ticket, and shot out towards security (with a few minutes to boarding).

Now, LGW has a brilliant system for boarding. There are several screens positioned around the lobby showing flights from throughout the day (as early as from 8am.. useful information, late in the afternoon). The staff feel themselves a bit Bondish, I believe.. you know, only when you need to know. This includes which gate your plane boards from. The status of flights will show 'Please wait..', and suddenly decide to flash red with 'Boarding closing at gate XXX'. Keeps people on their toes. Also makes people really anxious, something of which traveling is too often devoid. After at least five flight to Italy were canceled completely, mobs were looking for chairs to throw, the other people (many whom had been waiting 9 hours with multiple delays) sitting on these chairs and the general floor, and every single other flight on the televisions was delayed until a certain time, the next escalation for the masses would have probably involved petrol bombs. Ridiculous. Upon seeing 'Tallinn - Please Wait' on the board when I entered, I was slightly reassured and set of seeing how to best spend the 1P in my pocket left over from some other time in Gatwick. When I returned to the board, I was just as disassured when I realized that my flight no longer showed on the board. At least I knew what happened at 8am.

So.. shoved my way through the crowds to the front of the screaming mob (literally.. don't piss off Italians on multiple accounts..) I at long last divined that my flight was delayed until around 7.10 boarding. Brilliant. This at least released me for an overpriced pint of Murphy's to soothe the atmosphere. I really want to find out how many kegs that bar went through.. ended up talking to some bloke who works for BAE systems, moaning about how this was literally the worst day to fly (I didn't realize when booking, though the Friday before Christmas is.. well.. not.. good..). He offered to buy me another pint, and we stood staring hopelessly at the boards before I cut him off on a story about how his father had dual citizenship with the States for a while before they found out and he just decided to retire to the Senior-Jungles of Florida when I had a flashing boarding gate for my flight. Rushed off, slightly feeling the pints, and finally boarded (again with an empty seat next to mine, though across from an Estonian quite angry at the video games he was playing..). Again, never make the misconception that 'boarding' the plane means that you are in any way separated from Gatwick. So.. another probably 40 minutes at the gate before we were allowed to turn on the engines. Then we again embarked on a taxi to Malta. Fucking L.

Arrived in Tallinn around 1.30 AM here, scheduled for 9.50 PM landing. Fucking timepieces.

Took a taxi to my new place, dodging keys thrown from windows.. met the new flatmates, drank some glögi and soon dropped onto my foam block of a temporary mattress. I'll probably take down some details of the last two days soon, though it feels as if they never existed. I am only now touching down mentally.. with people and rushing around the last few days and all smothered with jetlag, I haven't had any time for settling.. for realizing and coming to. Only tonight, with all out to other cities for the holidays and myself in my apartment.. only now am I starting to make those connections. Myself. My apartment. Here. Lights and languages. Dark and dusk. With coming days, these will become wound into other words and sentence structures.. paragraphs and storylines following a continuum. Forging a continuum.

Maa on pole lumi, taevas ja mere without end. Edasi..